Information and communication technology (ICT) tools such as radio, television, mobile phone, the internet, computers are gaining momentum in the development discourse of the agriculture sector in Nepal. In agriculture extension, ICT tools fill the void that traditional agriculture extension cannot address. So, this study aimed at assessing the paddy farmers' knowledge, perception, and satisfaction on ICT tools in Jhapa, Kapilbastu, and Kailai districts following a multistage purposive sampling method. A survey research design was used for the study. Pretested semi-structured interview schedule was employed to randomly selected 390 sample respondents. Descriptive statistics along with the appropriately developed scales were used in the data analysis. The findings revealed that respondents were moderately aware (0.44) of the significant roles of ICT tools. Respondents do have more knowledge on the radio (0.87), TV (0.85), and mobile phones (0.76), whereas the majority possess TV (94%), radio (93%), and mobile phones (88%) among ICT tools. Farmers from Bardiya were more aware of the roles of ICT as compared to other study districts. Likewise, Radio and TV were the primary ICT tools used for agriculture-related information. Respondents had high skills in using radio and TV for information but poor skills in using the computer in all study districts. Most of the respondents positively perceived (0.14) ICT tools and were satisfied (0.23) with them, but their use was limited to radio, TV, and mobile phones. In addition, farmers of Kapilbastu districts were less satisfied with the use of ICT tools as compared to other study districts.

The effect of antifreeze protein type III (AFPIII) and human heat shock protein 70 (HHSP70), added to the vitrification medium of mouse embryos, on post-freeze/thaw in vitro embryonic growth rates and cell numbers were investigated. In total 20 female mice were synchronized. After synchronization, 2 females and 1 male were mated in the same cage. Twenty-four h after mating, the embryos were collected at the pronuclear stage. In total 8 groups were established, including a positive control group (C+), a negative control group (C-), and treatment groups that were vitrified in a medium added with 200, 400 and 800 ng/ml of AFPIII (AFPIII200, AFPIII400, AFPIII800), and 1, 2 and 4 µg/ml of HHSP70 (HHSP70-1, HHSP70-2, HHSP70-4). Solid surface vitrification (SSV) medium was prepared for the vitrification of the embryos. Once thawed, in vitro development rates of embryos were followed at 24, 48, 72 and 96 h. Four embryos, which progressed to the full blastocyst stage, were taken from each group and stained with the Hoeschst 33258 and propidium iodine (PI) dyes to determine the inner cell mass (ICM), trophectoderm (TE) and total cell numbers. The groups showed statistically significant difference for in vitro embryonic development rates at 48, 72 and 96 h (p

Garo people are tribal communities who live in the middle northern part of Bangladesh from time immemorial. The purpose of the research was to identify the reasons, outline, and impact on the relocation of Garo people in the city areas in Bangladesh. Primary data were collected from face-to-face contact through an interview schedule. The findings indicate that poverty, lack of production, unemployment, and security were the main push factors where urban job opportunity, urban life style and social security were pull factors for garo migration. Pattern analysis showed that 69 percent of respondents migrate to the city without a plan. Large farm and family size discourged the unplanned migarion where deteriorate social security influence garo people for unplanned migration. Study also revealed that garo people access to better income, health facility, transportation have increased. In contrast, the involvement of agricultureal activity greatly reduced. Moreover, migrated family maintain their daily requirement for food by purchasing market. Government should take policy for improving the security, income opportunity, and infrastructure for discouraging the unplanned migration from village to town.

The rapid increase in the world population increases the need for plant and animal food. Agriculture and animal husbandry practices are becoming more common day by day to meet the need for food and to obtain more products. This situation increases the amount of waste per unit of animal products. Increased animal excrement is associated with greenhouse gas emissions, harms the environment and animal health. One of these greenhouse gases, methane, increases animal production and poses a significant threat to global warming. Feeding research, which optimizes rumens and animal productivity to reduce ruminant methane emissions, is one of the hottest topics today. The purpose of this study is to evaluate feed distribution in terms of chemical composition, methane production, net energy, and organic matter digestibility by collecting forage and concentrates from various ranches in Niğde. Therefore, to increase the productivity of livestock on small farms in Turkey, the ratio of feed ingredients was determined on a farm basis, and there were some comments on the lower and upper limits of the fattening rate. Gas and methane production of TMR samples was determined using in vitro gas production technology. Nutrient contents obtained from different livestock farms CP (9.58-14.72), CF (1.89- 2.30), CA (7.64-13.92), ADF (19.77-27.82) NDF (36.71-45.69) DM (90.48-91.79) content, methane (CH₄), OMS, NEL and ME values were also different (P

This study compared the forage quality of Cajanus cajan, Stylosanthes mucronata, Tephrosia purpurea, and Securinega virosa in the savanna ecological zone of Ghana. The shrubs were cultivated using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) and their growth were monitored. Leaf samples were hand-harvested at 7, 10, and 13 weeks after establishment, air-dried, pulverised, and used for laboratory analysis. Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca), and Magnesium (Mg) were determined. N, P, K, Ca and Mg contents among the shrubs ranged from 0.74 - 0.79%, 1.32 - 1.99%, 7.63 - 10.09%, 2.22 - 3.06 and 1.08 - 1.38%, respectively. Stylosanthes mucronata was significantly lowest in both P (1.318%) and K (7.63%), whilst Securinega virosa was significantly highest in K (10.09%). Among the three maturity levels, N, P, K, Ca and Mg contents ranged from 0.31 – 1.05%, 1.51 - 1.93%, 7.46 - 10.43%, 2.63 - 2.67% and 1.28 - 1.30%, respectively. Except for P, which was significantly lowest at 10 weeks after establishment (WAE), N and K were significantly highest at 7 WAE and lowest at 10 and 13 WAE, respectively. It was observed that the shrub species and maturity levels influence the nutrient content of forage shrubs.

This study aims to reveal the quality properties of yogurt enriched with walnut during cold storage (4°C) for 28 days. Five sets of yogurt types were produced by using walnut at varying rates (A: 0% (control), B: 1%, C: 2.5%, D: 3.5%, E: 5%). Physicochemical, sensory, phenolic contents and antioxidant properties of yogurt samples was investigated during the 1st, 7th, 14th, and 28th days of storage. The study was conducted to optimize the walnut addition level to obtain better quality yogurt as a functional food. It was determined that the walnut enrichment affects the gross chemical component of yogurt samples. Yogurt sample with %5 walnuts (E) had the highest total phenolic and antioxidant activity content (respectively 1027.50 mg GAE/kg, 19.95 mM TE) among the samples. The yogurt sample with the highest sensory attribute score was the one containing 1% walnuts. Therefore, it was concluded that yogurt added with walnut could serve as functional yogurt beneficial for human health.

This study was aimed to determine the effect of hatching system (house and machine) and egg weight (heavy and light) on growth performance and meat quality traits in geese. The study was carried out for 12 weeks with a total of 220 Turkish native geese. The geese were individually weighed every 2 weeks during the study, on these same weeks feed conversion ratio (FCR) was measured. Hot and cold dressed, blood, head, foot, edible internal organs (heart, liver, gizzard), abdominal fat, neck, back, breast, thigh and wing percentages were determined. Also cooking loss, drip loss, color and pH were determined as meat quality traits. There was no significant difference between the egg weight groups in terms of BW. However, the geese produced in the house hatching system showed more BW from 6 to 12 weeks of age onwards compared to the machine system. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of FCR by 8 weeks. Both 10 and 12 weeks FCR were determined as the worst house heavy, while the best house light groups. Hot and cold carcass percentages in geese hatched from heavy were higher rates than light eggs. The percentage of wings differed significantly among geese produced from different egg weight groups. Breast meat cooking loss was found higher rates in heavy eggs than light eggs, while thigh meat cooking loss was found higher rates in the house than machine system. The results of this study show that geese hatched in the house system had more BW at the slaughter age compared to machine system geese. In addition, geese produced from heavy eggs showed a higher hot and cold dressed percentages than geese produced from light eggs.

Pesticides are commonly applied in market gardening to improve productivity and pest control. Pesticide residues could be persistent in vegetables and generate a potential health hazard for consumers. This study has been carried out in Tunisia to assess the perceived risk of consumers exposed to pesticide residues remaining in vegetables. Two surveys with different questionnaires were conducted among 30 market gardeners and 50 households located in the Djebeniana delegation (Sfax governorate, Tunisia) in order to analyze the phytosanitary practices of farmers on the one hand, and to better understand the attitude related to vegetable consumption and awareness on pesticide residues, on the other hand. The results revealed that various phytosanitary products have been used by market gardeners (43 commercial products containing 39 different active substances (AS)). Among these AS, abamectin and methomyl are considered as highly hazardous according the WHO classification. According to the behavior of pesticides in plants, more than half of the AS. (54%) are systemic and can be absorbed by the plant and moved around in its tissues. Furthermore, the majority of the surveyed farmers had never undergone agricultural training, which is a real handicap with respect to good phytosanitary practices. After applying pesticides, the pre-harvest interval was regularly not respected by almost half of the interviewed market gardeners. In addition, the study showed that all consumers washed their vegetables before consumption, but more than half of the respondents (54%) wash their vegetables for less than a minute (simply passing them under running water). In the light of these results, it appears that consumers may be exposed to pesticide residues from vegetables on the Tunisian market, with potential effects on their health.

Ethiopia is considered as the possible origin and center of diversity for okra. Therefore, this study was conducted with the objectives of determining the genetic distance between indigenous okra collections and exotic commercial varieties and assessing genetic diversity of okra genotypes. The field experiment was conducted at Dire Dawa in 2016 using 14 indigenous collections and 11 exotic varieties in 5 x 5 triple lattice design. Data were collected on 9 and 29 qualitative and quantitative traits, respectively. The genetic distance measured by Euclidean distance ranged from 3.1 to 12.6 with a mean of 7.2. The highest genetic distances were observed between indigenous okra collections and exotic varieties viz. Guba-12 and NamdHari (12.6) followed by Guba-12 and Vellayani (12.3) and Mythri and Guba-12 (11.8). Dendrogram constructed by Unweighted Pair-group Method with Arithmetic Means grouped the 25 genotypes into seven major clusters in which the three clusters (Cluster II, III and V) were solitary, consisted of one genotype each, Cluster I consisted of six Indian commercial varieties, Cluster IV comprised of seven genotypes (four indigenous okra collections, one variety from USA and two from India), while Cluster VI and VII comprised of 5 and 4 indigenous okra collections, respectively. This study revealed the presence of wide genetic diversity among indigenous okra collections and exotic commercial varieties.

This study was carried out in the central county of Ağrı Province in order to reveal the cattle feeding habits of cattle breeders. For this purpose, data were obtained by conducting a face-to-face survey with 400 dairy cattle owners of the enterprises in the county. According to the results obtained from this study, it was determined that 91.5% of the breeders produced their forage crops. It was also found out that barley, alfalfa, and sainfoin were the most produced plants in these enterprises. However, the production of the corn silage, which is an important source of roughage for dairy cattle, was performed at a very low level (1.2%). Dry hay (93.5%) took first place among the roughage sources used in these enterprises, and it was followed by alfalfa hay (61.5%) and wheat-barley straw (28.0%). Corn silage was used at a low level (7.8%) in the cattle enterprises. It was determined that cattle breeders in the central county of Ağrı province were deficient in terms of some information about cattle feeding practices. It was also demonstrated that it was necessary to increase the usage and production of corn silage as forage crops and to implement rational animal feeding practices in place of the old traditional animal feeding habits. Therefore, cattle breeders in the central county of Ağrı province should be involved in technical training programs about the cattle feeding and forage planting. As result of the courses given to the cattle breeders, their technical information about cattle nutrition and preparation of ration would be updated. For this purpose, it is also recommended that agricultural extension service should be boosted to increase the education level and awareness of the cattle breeders in the rural areas.